"For the apparel oft proclaims the man," Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet [Act 1, Scene 3] -William Shakespeare
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." -Mark Twain
The second quote above is attributed to Mark Twain and was first published posthumously in "More Maxims from Mark" ed. Merle Johnson [1910, p. 6]. In Twain's notebooks and writings there are numerous examples on his ruminations of Shakespeare's Polonius' declamation to Laertes.
The clothes I wear in the studio determine much about how I work. I have different clothes for different types of painting -messy greenhouse or low mess table, small or large scale oil, acrylic, watercolor and/or gouache- and various environmental conditions -temperature, time of day. I generally wear the same shoes year round. I never paint in rings or other jewelry because I find it uncomfortable, too formal, too dangerous if caught in tools, and hate getting paint on it or unintentionally making marks that do not work. Knowing how my studio attire impacts and is impacted by what I choose to wear when I work I went to the second hand clothing store to select clothes and accessories for Franz and Petra to wear when they are working. As Mark Twain wrote "Naked people have little or no influence on society." and Franz and Petra would first have influence on the society that is the studio once they were clothed.
Considerations when selecting the garments and accessories for each were based on what I had learned about each over the previous six months of their development, how they might work and what materials they might work with. While shopping I tried to not shop for them as much as with them. For example, if I selected a t-shirt from the rack for Franz the question I asked was not 'Would Franz wear this' but 'Franz, would you wear this?' and 'Why would you wear this?'
Photos of the results of dressing Franz and Petra.